by Cory Barclay
“Smoking,” Steve said. “Talking to those homeless guys. They aren’t bad dudes.”
Dale was on his knees, looking deep into the chest, away from Steve. “They?” he said, chuckling. “You mean the guy with the curly hair who was talking to himself? You shouldn’t let him stay right outside the studio, man. Gives the place a bad vibe.”
Steve frowned. He wanted to defend Pancho’s forgotten honor, but he decided not to. Dale must have simply not seen him in the shadows.
“Aha!” Dale said, finding the right microphone. He held it up like the Holy Grail and brought it to the stand in front of Annabel. He lowered the mic stand so it was positioned parallel to the hole in her guitar, then attached the mic. “Don’t let that homeless guy drive you nuts, Steve-o. If you want clients, you have to get rid of the riffraff.”
Steve felt suddenly tired. He’d had a long day, and the last thing he needed was a cheery berating from his big friend. “Okay, Fats, whatever you say.”
Steve listened as Annabel laid down the bones of her first song on his father’s old guitar. He kept feeling his eyes droop, though, and was feeling a bit apprehensive. In the past when he recorded with his band, it was bad juju to be in the same room as another musician who was recording—differing opinions, ideas clashing, the idea it wouldn’t turn out as well—basic superstitious thinking. So as Annabel began, he turned to Dale. “You got this covered?”
Dale looked wounded. “You don’t want to listen?”
“I’ll listen to the playback. I need some rest.”
Frowning, Dale said, “You’re the boss.”
Steve walked out the room and down the hall, to a little staircase leading up, barely wide enough for a person to fit through. Atop the stairs was his studio-sized apartment. His bed had no bedframe—it was a simple twin that sat on the lonely floor—but nonetheless he was asleep once his head hit the pillow.
THEN HE WAS DREAMING . . . a fragmented dream of twisted reality mixed with unfathomable fantasy. At first, he was swirling through a spinning blue void, unable to get his bearings until he was spit out from the conical limbo and discharged onto a sandy beach.
He was on his knees, as if praying. He dug his hands into the sand and watched the little alluvial avalanche fall through his spread fingers. He looked up and the beach was empty. Frothy white waves smacked against the hard wet sand, far away. He recognized the place—he thought he might have been on the beach at the end of Pacific Beach Drive, down the road.
He looked again at his sandy hands, then back up.
The beach was no longer empty. Tourists filled the area—one of Steve’s worst nightmares. It wasn’t even summer. What were the tourists doing here?
Pale out-of-towners and tanned local girls in their tiny bikinis and spaghetti thongs laid on their stomachs with their heads down, soaking up the sun, aware, but uncaring, of all the perverted boys and men who ogled their asses as they walked by.
Umbrellas were set up, dotting the beach, tourist families huddled underneath each one to hide from the blaring sun. A family was playing volleyball. Some friends were throwing a frisbee.
Steve looked toward the crystal-blue ocean, out at the pier that stuck out in the water like an artery. When he squinted and turned back to the beach, he started to scan the faces of the tourists.
All the faces were blurry. It made no sense, as dreams often do.
Then his eyes locked onto a particular umbrella shading two pale figures from the sun. They were a man and woman, both with gaunt faces that looked like they would catch fire if touched by the sunlight.
They both stared at Steve.
Their faces were the only ones that weren’t blurry. And they were the only beings on the beach looking at him. Directly at him. Unnervingly.
Steve blinked.
Then he was no longer on the beach. Well, he was, but he was no longer under the beating sun. He was under a shady umbrella.
Something was blocking a ray of sunlight from hitting him, like an eclipse.
He craned his neck. The two pale-faced, dark figures stared back at him, disapprovingly. They were standing over him.
Steve’s throat caught in his chest.
“Bring us our daughter back, you thief!” the man said.
“If anything happens to her, it’s your head!” the woman shrieked.
They spoke with accents—deep, Eastern European accents.
Steve opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. As his Adam’s apple lifted and his mouth opened, the pale man suddenly lunged at him with his face, baring his teeth.
The sharp teeth connected with his throat.
Steve jolted awake, drenched in sweat.
CHAPTER FOUR
Steve groggily made his way toward the skinny staircase leading to his studio. He rubbed his eyes and put his hands to his temples to try to stop his brain from jumping out of his skull. He felt like he was nursing a world-ending hangover, though he’d had nothing to drink yesterday. He’d had nothing to drink in three hundred and forty-three consecutive yesterdays, in fact.
As he reached the stairs, he could hear music coming from somewhere . . . it sounded like live instruments, but he wasn’t awake enough to pinpoint the epicenter of the cacophony.
He stopped halfway down the stairs and perked his ears.
On second thought, after giving it a chance, the music wasn’t cacophonic . . . it was actually quite lovely.
He shrugged and came to the bottom of the stairs, where he almost barreled into Dale, who was standing in the hallway with a cup of steaming coffee in his hands and his dumb grin on his face. He held out the mug like a knight presenting his king a crown.
Steve took the cup and said, “What are you, my butler?”
Dale’s goofy grin disappeared. “Your words sting, good sir. I’m just trying to be nice for letting us crash at your place last night. Plus, you look a bit worse for wear, my dude.”
Steve hadn’t bothered to look at himself in a mirror yet. Dale was right. He’d gotten an awful night’s sleep. He didn’t need to be told he looked shitty—he felt shitty.
“You crashed here last night?” Steve asked.
Dale nodded. “Annabel did too. On the lobby couch. I took the floor, like a gentleman.”
Steve’s eyes widened a bit. “She stayed here too?”
“Someone’s a little slow on the uptake this morning, eh? She had nowhere to go, dude.”
“And, where is she?”
Dale thrust his thumb over his shoulder. “Outside busking, trying to make enough cheese for another session tonight.”
“How long did you guys record last night?”
Dale looked guilty. You could always tell when Dale was guilty of something because he refused to look at you. Right now, he was staring at something interesting on the white wall. “Longer than an hour . . .”
Steve sighed. Sternly, he said, “How long, Dale?”
You could always tell when Steve was being serious with Dale because he used his actual name.
“I guess ‘til about . . . five in the morning?” Dale said sheepishly.
Steve gasped, so great was his immediate shock. “That’s”—he counted on his fingers like a kindergartner—“seven hours! That’s three hundred and fifty bucks, man!”
Dale started to back up. Though he was twice Steve’s size, he was still scared of Steve’s ire. After all, it was Steve’s studio—and house.
Dale waved his hands in Steve’s face. “But, dude, hear me out. You were right! That girl can play, man. She’s like a paler, gothier Joni Mitchell!”
Steve scoffed. “I bet she doesn’t even know who Joni Mitchell is.”
“You can’t blame her for being young, you old fart. Just because you’re past your prime doesn’t mean you can take it out—”
“Past my prime?! I’m twenty-nine!”
“Soon to be on the wrong end of thirty, my friend,” Dale pointed out.
Steve stormed past Dale, the steam from his coffee
wafting into Dale’s face. He had to squeeze sideways to get by Dale, which made his storming out less dignified than he’d have liked. He beelined for the room his two new roommates were using the night before and sat in the “commander’s chair”—as he liked to call it—in front of the computer.
He tapped a few keys and brought up the recording interface and quickly saw Dale had started a folder titled “The Raven.”
“Really, Fats? ‘The Raven’?”
Dale stood over Steve’s shoulder and shrugged. “Yeah, that poem by Poe, ya know? The Raven . . . Annabel Lee . . .”
“I get it. I think her name will be a better stage name than ‘The Raven,’ though.”
“You might think differently when you listen to these songs,” Dale said. “I had to keep them incognito, ya know? Can’t let anyone find them.”
“Didn’t take me too long, did it?” Steve said. He really was in a sour mood this morning. But it was that damn dream . . . or nightmare . . . he didn’t even know how to classify the shenanigans that had gone on in his head while sleeping.
There were three files in the folder, and Steve clicked on the first one. It brought him to the ProTools interface, complete with colorful bars going lengthwise across the screen. He clicked PLAY and a line started moving down the bars.
The song started. It was slow and spacey, sort of reminiscent to a Pink Floyd beginning, but it quickly picked up pace. Before long, a plucky electric guitar melody came in over the acoustic chords, which were fingerpicked, presumably by Annabel.
“That was me,” Dale said with a big grin, pointing at the screen when the electric guitar kicked in.
“I can tell,” Steve said. He continued listening to the song, which, as it turned out, sounded great. Right now, it was just two guitars. Bare-bones. But it definitely had potential.
“Bel says she has lyrics for this one written, but she didn’t want to record vocals,” Dale said, as if reading into Steve’s next comment.
Irked, Steve narrowed his eyes. Without looking at Dale, he said, “She lets you call her Bel?”
He could feel Dale’s shrug without having to see it.
“Why doesn’t she want to record vocals?”
“I dunno. ‘Bad things happen,’ as she put it . . . but I think she’s just shy. Maybe you can coax it out of her. Give her a pep talk.”
Steve stood from the rolling commander’s chair. “We don’t even know if she can sing . . .”
Dale ignored that. “Whaddya think?” he asked.
“It sounds good,” Steve said. He briskly walked past Dale, and of course Dale was right on his heels as he left the room.
“That’s it?” Dale said, throwing his big arms up in the air. “Just good?”
Steve spun around. Dale almost ran into him. “What do you want me to say, Fats? It’s great. It sounds phenomenal. But it’s just the skeleton of a tune right now—a jam. We need to get her on the mic.”
Dale recoiled, intimidated by Steve’s sudden outburst. “Jeez, man, don’t need to get your panties in a wad,” he muttered meekly. Steve turned back around and headed for the front door. When he was no longer facing Dale, a big smile formed on Dale’s face.
That was all he really wanted to hear, that Steve liked the song.
Steve was probably just jealous he had nothing to do with it.
Musicians were, by their very nature, the jealous type. As much as Paul McCartney might try to play it off when John Lennon wrote a banger like “Come Together,” it always stung to see your name absent on the writing credits.
Songs could be like jealous lovers: it hurt when you weren’t a part of their life.
That’s why almost every Beatles song had “Lennon & McCartney” on the writing credits—both names—regardless of who actually wrote the song. It kept the marriage civil and cordial and palatable—at least to outside eyes—even when the actual partnership was anything but those things.
Outside, it was a lovely San Diego morning in Pacific Beach. The sun shined brightly on the street, cars whizzing by the tattoo parlors and bars, the white reflection off their hoods partially blinding Steve as he stepped through the door.
On the sidewalk, he put his hand out to hide from the sun and looked to his right, where the music was coming from.
To his amazement, Annabel had a little crowd of about five people, all of whom seemed to be enjoying her playing.
Even more amazing, however, was Annabel was not alone. She was sitting on a stool—from inside the studio—strumming her guitar, while the homeless guy from last night, Tumbleweed, was standing next to her playing his guitar.
His guitar. Steve’s applewood-smoked Martin.
It nearly gave Steve a heart attack, seeing this curly headed, grimy alley-dweller using his guitar without permission. Glancing over as he stepped toward them, Steve noticed the heavier homeless guy, Pancho, near the mouth of the alley with his back against the wall. He wasn’t hiding, but rather just watching and enjoying the music.
Annabel and Tumbleweed were playing a rousing acoustic rendition of Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” with Tumbleweed doing the singing. He had that nasally drawl of Petty down pat, but Steve was bummed it wasn’t Annabel doing the singing. Given the song, it made sense a male would be singing, but still.
He hadn’t heard her sing once yet, and he was banking a lot on this chick being good. He knew it was foolish to assume she could sing well just because she could play guitar well, but if she sucked, Craigslist was just a New Tab away, and it was swarming with vocalists. Maybe one of them would be up to snuff.
Steve pushed his way through the crowd and said, “What the hell?” as he got to the front.
They were just finishing the song as he got there, so luckily Steve didn’t embarrass them. Immediately after, the crowd clapped and a few of them laid down some dollars, which Annabel and Tumbleweed split fifty-fifty. The crowd started to disperse.
Steve snatched his guitar from Tumbleweed’s dirty hands. To his dismay, Tumbleweed instinctively held his grip on the neck of the guitar, which made Steve even more furious.
“Aww, come on, man, you’re scaring away the crowd,” Tumbleweed said.
Steve snorted. “Who said you could play my guitar?”
Tumbleweed shrugged, his afro wobbling.
“I did,” Annabel said. “I’m sorry, Mister Remington. Mister Fats said it was okay.”
“He knows better than that,” Steve growled. He turned to Annabel. “And call me Steve.” He looked back at Tumbleweed and said, “It was my father’s guitar.” Then, back to Annabel: “And why are you letting Mister Fats call you Bel, huh?”
Annabel looked confused. Steve was aware he looked and sounded a bit crazy, and his question came completely out of left field, basically from another stadium.
“Uhhh . . .” Annabel began.
“Never mind,” Steve said, waving her off. “Let’s just go inside and record, okay?”
Annabel made a show of counting her money on her lap. It was about ten bucks. “I don’t think I have enough to afford—”
“Screw it, let’s just do it. Come on. Pro bono.”
Annabel nodded firmly. “Okay then.” She faced her impromptu jam partner and said, with a smile, “Have a good afternoon, Mister Weed.”
Tumbleweed said, “Yeah, you too, chica. Fun playing with you, let’s do it again sometime . . .”
Steve said, “Not with my guitar!”
Annabel put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Come on, Mister Steve.”
Steve turned around to walk back to his studio, but he felt another hand on his shoulder. He turned one last time and Tumbleweed was standing there with his pointer finger and middle finger in the shape of a V.
“Spare a square?”
STEVE FINALLY GOT ANNABEL to sing a song, and it was beautiful. Her lyrics were hauntingly mature for such a young woman. The song she wrote was about a girl who gets abandoned from her home and travels like a spirit from place to place.
; The irony of the song’s subject matter did not escape Steve.
In the song, the girl eventually meets a man she falls in love with, on the streets—Steve just hoped it wasn’t Tumbleweed—while also being allowed back in by her family. Ultimately, she has to choose between the rough-and-tumble life on the road with her lover, or the safety and security of her family.
A bit generic, but still heavy stuff, in Steve’s opinion.
(She chooses the dangerous life with her lover, in the last verse.)
“That was great!” Steve said when she was finished singing into the mic. All his moodiness and bad attitude had been washed away once he’d started recording Annabel. She had a tremendous voice, soft yet powerful.
“Really, Bel, it was awesome,” Dale echoed.
Annabel didn’t look so sure. She stared at the ground, of all places, like she was ashamed or embarrassed about something.
“It really was, Bel,” Steve said, throwing out her “friends only” nickname nonchalantly, hoping it might stick. Now they were recording music together, he should be able to call their partnership a friendship, no?
Steve thought so.
When she didn’t immediately scold him, Steve clenched his fist in silent victory. He really did want this girl to like him. She was nice to be around, and even though she was so dainty and frail, she had a commanding presence—as was evident by her crowd outside the studio—and a good aura.
“I just hope it doesn’t backfire . . .”
Steve didn’t know what she meant by that. He said, “You didn’t sound like a banshee at all! You sounded like a siren, my dear.”
For the first time, Annabel smiled at him. She lifted her head and looked at Steve and smiled, showing bright white teeth on her pale face. It was a smile that could end a revolution.
Steve was stuck staring at her face for an overly long time.
She was the first one to look away, then Steve cleared his throat and did the same. Flustered, he got up from the commander’s chair and fumbled around a bit, eliciting a giggle from Dale.
“I’m . . . gonna go outside and smoke a cigarette. Want to work on the next track when I get back?”